


The Boy Who Stopped Time

by hedgehoggery



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Big Fish AU, Can't believe I'm saying this but..., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 09:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15264930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgehoggery/pseuds/hedgehoggery
Summary: They say when you meet the love of your life, time stands completely still. Kakashi is surprised to find this is true - but his soulmate disappears before he can identify him. Now his only problem is finding out the identity of the boy who stopped time.





	The Boy Who Stopped Time

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmate idea from the novel/movie Big Fish.   
> A study in the first person, told from the perspective of Kakashi Hatake.   
> Canon divergent in that Tenzo doesn't leave ROOT until after Kakashi leaves ANBU, and Kakashi doesn't meet Yamato until he takes over Team 7 at the beginning of Shippuden.

They say when you first meet the love of your life, time stands completely still. I always thought that was a figure of speech until the day I met mine. 

As my eyes rested on the unfamiliar ANBU across the field, I felt the earth grind to a halt, I heard the air around me hum in anticipation, and I saw the fight around me stop. Not stop as in everyone stopped fighting. Oh, no. It literally  _ stopped.  _ Kunai hung in midair, having been thrown by shinobi who were now frozen in place. Droplets of blood that had just been flying across my vision were now defying gravity as they stayed perfectly still in the air. Time had quite literally stopped. I found myself rooted to the spot, unable to move, the sound of my own heartbeat and shallow breath pounding in my ears.

What they don’t tell you is that after time stops, it has to speed forward to catch up with the rest of the world. This was quite inconvenient, seeing as how I was in the middle of a particularly treacherous fight at that moment. As suddenly as everything had stopped, it all started moving again at several times the normal speed. Kunai that had already been whizzing by were now flying so fast that I couldn’t even see them. Enemies and allies alike jumped around me in a blur. And the unfamiliar ANBU, the cause of all my problems, was gone by the time I was able to move. 

Who was it? Who had it been? Who was this ANBU who had stopped time for me?

Somehow I survived the fight despite being petrified in place for the second half of it. Fate, it would seem, would not let me die that day. 

My life took on a new meaning after that encounter. My only mission in life before that day had been to be the best Shinobi I could be. I still had that goal, but now it was coupled with another: find the mysterious ANBU who had stopped my world from spinning. 

I had noticed only two things about my apparent soulmate during that time - he had long brown hair and he wore a feline ANBU mask with both green and red markings. The fact that I didn’t recognize the mask could only mean one thing: he was a member of ROOT. This fact was annoying, as it would almost certainly be difficult if not impossible to obtain any information about ROOT members. Danzo didn’t exactly seem like the type of guy to keep personnel lists lying around. 

I broke into ROOT headquarters anyway, hoping against hope to find any information about my mystery ANBU and was almost immediately captured. Danzo was many things, and paranoid was one of them - he had so many guards stationed around his base that it was impossible to move around without drawing attention, even for a pretty decent Shinobi like myself. 

I wasn’t lucky enough to be captured by the cat-masked ANBU, that would’ve been too convenient. Instead I was captured by some giant bald guy who  _ definitely _ didn’t stop time for me or probably anyone else. As he dragged me through the maze of hallways that were ROOT headquarters, a thought occurred to me: even if I didn’t actually find my soulmate inside ROOT headquarters, perhaps the trip wouldn’t be completely wasted if I got some information -  _ any _ information - that could help me track him down later. 

“Hey man,” I said to my captor. “I’m not here to start any trouble. I’m looking for a particular member of ROOT. All I know about them is they have long brown hair and a mask like a cat. Do you know them?” 

“Are you seriously so stupid as to think I would give up any information about ROOT?” baldie said. 

Fair enough. But it had been worth a shot. 

With confirmation that this annoying ROOT guy wasn’t going to provide much help to me at all, I made my move. Quickly, I ducked out of his grasp and leapt into the air, landing on a catwalk above me. I heard alarms blaring as I ran towards the exit but I was confident that I could defeat anyone they threw my way. 

As if in response to that challenge, two ROOT shinobi dropped down in front of me from another catwalk above. I spun around them and knocked their heads together to render them unconscious. After all, ROOT or not, these guys were still Leaf Shinobi. It wouldn’t be right to kill them. I continued towards the exit and was just about to jump out of the line of danger when a final ANBU landed in front of me.

He had jumped from above and landed silently in front of me, one hand on the ground to steady himself and the other on the hilt of the sword on his back, his long brown hair flowing behind him from the speed of his landing. Before he looked up at me I knew what I’d see - a feline mask with red and green markings. I thanked the heavens that my own canine ANBU mask hid my face, or else I likely would’ve looked pretty damn foolish in that moment, grinning at the sight of what was supposed to be an enemy. 

“Found you,” I said to my soulmate. He simply stayed crouched on the floor looking up at me, suspiciously not attacking or subduing me in any way. “Hey, what’s wrong?” 

I heard shouts behind me and turned to see several members of ROOT running towards me with swords drawn. With the sudden realization that they might not be so hesitant to kill a fellow Leaf Shinobi as I was, I took off running for the exit. 

I ran right past the cat-masked ANBU but he didn’t so much as move a muscle. I’m supposed to be some kind of genius or something, but it took me an embarrassingly long moment to understand what was happening - time was stopped for him, as it had been for me during the battle when I first saw him.

I escaped ROOT without a scratch, but also without any additional information on my mysterious ANBU of destiny. 

Years went by without me seeing the brunet ANBU and I started to question if he was even still alive. After all, the life of a Shinobi wasn’t guaranteed. In fact, I wondered if it was even possible that  _ I _ had been the cause of his death - I never saw him after my break in of the ROOT headquarters and, to his comrades, it probably looked like he had let me go. It was entirely possible that they had killed him in retribution. The very thought of that possibility made me feel downright sick.

Eventually, though, I had to move on. My soulmate was dead, and there was nothing I could do to change that. I focused on my career as a Shinobi, again resigned to the fact that my original mission in life was the only one I’d be able to pursue. I decided I should at least be grateful for knowing that I  _ had _ a soulmate. Surely it would’ve been worse if he had died before I had gotten a chance to see him even from a distance.

The mission of “be the best Shinobi I could be” took on a new recklessness with the knowledge that I’d never meet my soulmate. Before, when there was still a chance I’d find him one day, I would hold back in fights to protect my own life because I had something to live for. But now he was gone. So I found myself getting sucked into more and more dangerous situations, and I lost count of how many scrapes I’d had with death. 

My recklessness was precisely the reason I left ANBU. I wouldn’t be useful to the Leaf as a dead ANBU, and so the Hokage asked me to step into a new role - a jonin teacher. I accepted against my better judgement, and eventually took on a team of genin. Being responsible for their lives forced me to be a little less reckless than I had during the last of my ANBU days and I started settling into a life I never expected. I threw myself into my work and found myself thinking less and less about my lost love. 

Weeks turned into months, and months to years, and before I knew it, I had been out of ANBU almost five years. My students had become like family to me, and I’d accepted the fact that they’d be the only family I’d ever have. So when the Akatsuki kidnapped the Kazekage and my team was sent on the rescue mission, I found myself falling back into my pattern of recklessness in order to protect them. I wound up stuck in the hospital after the mission.

But the world doesn’t stop spinning for one man (well, except for my soulmate), and my team had to go on missions without me. Tsunade-sama introduced me to the man who would be my temporary replacement - a brunet jonin named Yamato. 

Yamato had an excellent record as a Shinobi, according to Tsunade-sama, and had apparently been my replacement in ANBU after I had left all those years ago. After talking with him for a bit I found myself fully convinced that he was a proper replacement lead for my team. 

During their first mission without me I waited anxiously in the hospital for their return, and found myself worrying for Yamato just as much as the rest of my team. I told myself it was because I needed him to be safe to protect my kids, or because he was a Leaf Shinobi and I would care about  _ any _ Leaf Shinobi that much. But the way my stomach fluttered upon his return proved that was a lie.

I briefly questioned if it was possible that someone could get a  _ second _ soulmate if the first died, and if Yamato was that soulmate. But I quickly dismissed the idea - after all, time hadn’t stopped when Yamato walked into my hospital room before the mission. So I decided it was nothing, just a crush at most, and never made an effort to pursue him as anything but a friend. And I figured that had been the right choice, because he quickly became one of my closest friends.

So it wasn’t unusual when we found ourselves alone at the bar late one night, talking about everything from missions to life and, finally, to love.

“Do you believe in soulmates, Kakashi?” 

Yamato’s question took me off guard. I had never spoken about my soulmate encounter with anyone. 

“Yeah, I guess I do,” I replied, trying to feign nonchalance. Yamato chuckled.

“You know, it’s funny,” he said. “They say when you meet the love of your life, time stands completely still.” 

“Do they,” I said, feeling a pit of anxiousness forming in my stomach at the trajectory of this conversation. Yamato shrugged.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” he said. “Do… do you believe that?” I sighed as I considered my options. I’d never told anyone about my encounter before, but I considered Yamato to be one of my closest friends and there was really no harm in telling him what had happened.

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “It… it happened to me.” Yamato’s eyebrows shot up. 

“It did?” he practically whispered. I nodded my head and leaned in to tell my story.

“It was when I was just a teenager,” I said. “During a fight with the Hidden Stone I saw a ROOT ANBU across the field. Time literally stopped, Yamato. I can’t explain it. The whole world just… stopped.” Yamato was staring at me, wide eyed.

“Who was it?” he asked. “I’ve never seen you with anyone.” I shrugged to try to hide to pang of sorrow I suddenly felt.

“I never found out,” he said. “I tried to track him down, but I figure he must have died.” Yamato sighed and looked almost as forlorn as I felt.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “You know… I was in ROOT. Maybe I knew him.” I almost jumped out of my seat.

“You were in ROOT?!” I said. “I never knew.” He shrugged.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” he said. I could understand that - ROOT didn’t have the best reputation among shinobi. 

“What about you, Yamato?” I said. He cocked his head in confusion. “Do you believe that time stops when you meet your soulmate?” He chuckled.

“Why, did it look like I thought you were lying?” he joked. “I do believe in it. It happened to me. But I never met him either. I figure he died a long time ago too.” I smiled sadly at him.

“Guess we’re destined to be alone,” I said. He chuckled.

“Guess so.”

“How did it happen for you?” I asked. He leaned back and looked past my head as if lost in his own thoughts.

“It’s kind of a weird story,” he said after a long silence. “And it’s classified.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s classified?” I said. “Only you would have a classified love story, Yamato. But you know, I have a clearance.” He looked at me with a gleam in his eyes.

“Not high enough for this story,” he said. “But… I’ll tell you if you promise to keep quiet.” I held up my right hand in a solemn promise.

“I swear to you as a Leaf Shinobi, I’ll never utter a word of your classified romance,” I said. 

“Okay, well…” he began. “It was a long time ago now. I was a member of ROOT at the time. Some ANBU guy broke into ROOT headquarters.” I felt my mouth go dry. “He had gotten caught and was running away. He had already knocked out a few of my comrades but I was certain I had him cornered. I jumped down right in front of him and then… it was like the earth stopped spinning. Everything just stopped and I was glued to my spot. Eventually time started working again but it was all messed up. It sped up and by the time I could move, he was gone. I never even saw his face. All I saw was his…”

“Hound ANBU mask?” I asked breathlessly. Yamato’s eyes shot up to meet mine, full of confusion. 

“How did you know that?” he asked. My head was spinning. Was it possible my soulmate wasn’t dead? Was it possible… that  _ Yamato _ was my soulmate?

“Yamato,” I said. “Was your ANBU mask a green and red cat?” The color drained from Yamato’s face. “And did you ever have long hair?”

“Kakashi, what are you saying?” he asked. 

“Yamato,  _ I _ was the ANBU who broke into ROOT all those years ago,” I said. “It was me.” Yamato stared at me while a range of emotions played across his face - shock, awe, and finally, disbelief.

“That’s not funny, Kakashi,” he said. 

“I’m not joking!” I insisted. “The man who stopped my world was a ROOT ANBU with long brown hair and a green and red cat mask. I broke into ROOT to find him. To find you.” The words were spilling out too fast but I didn’t care. Here he was - the love of my life. He’d been right in front of me all this time.

“Kakashi,” Yamato breathed. He looked as though his entire world had been turned upside down, and I couldn’t really blame him. “What… what does this mean?” 

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess it means we’re soulmates.” Yamato’s eyes met my own and he burst out laughing. After a second I found myself laughing with him.

“God, it makes so much sense,” he said. “I feel like an idiot for not realizing it before.” 

“Me too,” I admitted. “What should we do now?” Yamato smiled and I felt a soothing warmth enveloping me as he reached out and took my hand in his.

“Whatever we do,” he said. “Let’s do it together.”


End file.
